Sorting Through the Sammy Trade
After years of speculation, the Sixers front office finally pulled off a move sending Samuel Dalembert packing. The deal sends him to the Kings in exchange for the overpaid Andres Nocioni and young big man Spencer Hawes. Many fans are relieved that the Sixers have departed from the Dalembert era but the trade leaves a lot to sort through and many questions left unanswered. Including what the Sixers do with the second overall pick next week.
First of all, we should sort through the players and contracts the Sixers traded for. Nocioni’s contract is much larger than he deserves. He was good with the Bulls but had a sub par 2009 in his first full year with the Kings. He came off the bench on one of the league’s worst teams and only averaged 8.5ppg.
He’s a great outside shooter and a tough defender though. However, he’s a forward/guard (like Evan Turner) which makes it seem like the Sixers will go in a different direction on draft day. His contract doesn’t expire until 2012.
In Spencer Hawes, the Sixers get a young, developing big man. He’s a 7-1 player who just finished his third year in the league. He’s averaged about 11 points over the past 2 seasons but is surprisingly bad at rebounding. You would expect a player over 7 feet tall to grab more than 5.5 rpg for his career.
Hawes is a good player besides his lack of rebounding and doesn’t take up too much cap space. His contract is up after this season.
The fact that the Sixers traded their starting center and leading rebounder for 2 guys who aren’t really fond of rebounding makes people wonder what they’ll do with their draft pick.
They have an overflow of guards/forwards now with Nocioni so would adding Evan Turner make sense? They’re also lacking a dominant, rebounding big man so does that mean they’ll take Derrick Favors- a guy that coach Collins is high on?
There’s also the strong possibility of the Sixers trading the pick to move back a bit (not too far) and get extra pieces and still have the chance to take someone like Cousins.
At this time I would like to thank Sammy for the past 8 years he spent representing Philly. He had his ups and downs but let’s face it- he was a big part of the Sixers over the past decade.
